An Advanced SOM Algorithm Applied to Handover Management Within LTE

A novel approach to handover management for LTE femtocells is presented. Within LTE, the use of Self Organizing Networks is included as standard and handover management is one of its use cases. Base stations can autonomously decide whether handover should take place and assign the values of relevant parameters. Due to the limited range of femtocells, handover requires more delicate attention in an indoor scenario to allow for efficient and seamless handover from indoor femtocells to outdoor macrocells. As a result of the complexities of the indoor radio environment, frequent ping-pong handovers between the femtocell and macrocell layers can occur.